Fox Business Panel Mostly Ignores Benefits Of Raising Minimum Wage

Cashin’ In offered its panel of well-paid experts yesterday to attack weigh in on Mitt Romney’s proposal to raise the minimum wage. Not one of them appears to be trying to make ends meet on anything close to the minimum wage (though to listen to regular Tracy Byrnes’ incessantwhining, you’d think she was). Nor do any appear to be the kind of struggling small retail business owners the prosperous-looking panel insisted would be endangered if the wage-hike was effected. If all you knew about the subject came from this segment, you’d think that minimum wage is like living high on the hog at business-owners’ expense.

Jonathan Hoenig put forth the suggestion under discussion - that the minimum wage should be abolished. He called it a “government force, so of course it destroys jobs. It violates the rights of both employers and employees to act in their own self interest… They have to make that judgment, not a government bureaucrat. And just like unions who force artificially high wages, of course, the net result is a lack of productivity, a destruction of productivity, and a destruction of jobs.”

Host Cheryl Casone noted that unemployment is worst among teenagers. She added, “If there is going to be a hike in the minimum wage, small businesses could say I’m not going to hire any more kids, I’m going to go for free interns.”

Lone Democrat Jehmu Greene said, “The minimum wage is clearly in all of our best interests. I listen to Jonathan, he sounds like a broken record. We’re not going to get rid of the minimum wage, stop complaining about it, Jonathan… The more people make, the better consumers they’re going to be. They take that money and minimum wage workers, they spend all of their additional funding.”

Hoenig sneered, “Spend it, right. Talk about a broken record.”

Greene continued, “They spend it in local neighborhoods, and it boosts the economy, especially for small retail businesses.”

Does Tracy Byrnes ever go a day without complaining about how unfair life is for her? Today’s whine was, “But that’s the biggest problem, Jehmu. Small retail businesses are forced to pay a salary they might not necessarily be able to afford. You know, my wage is not tied or indexed to inflation... So why then do we do this for some and not the others? Look, I think it is unfair to require a company to pay a certain amount of money for a job that you and I don’t know what it is.”

Casone asked, “What about the states?” She mentioned that 17 states were either raising the minimum wage or considering it. “Maybe this isn’t a federal issue?” she suggested.

John Layfield agreed and made a joke out of it. “I don’t think it is a federal issue… To the point that you raise people’s wages they’re gonna be able to be more productive consumers, then let’s just go with that and raise the minimum wage to $500 an hour based on that… The minimum wage affects very few people to me… This minimum wage to me is not really that big a deal.” Easy for him to say.

Comment: As Greene noted, there’s a very good argument for raising the minimum wage, especially as laid out in a recent Salon article by Dean Baker and John Scmitt:

(A) large body of research shows that increases in the minimum wage at the national, state and even local levels have not cost jobs. That may sound counterintuitive; after all, economists always say that when the price rises, demand falls. This should mean that with a higher minimum wage, employers will want fewer workers.

The real story, however, is somewhat more complex. Employers not only care about the wages they pay, they also care about workers’ productivity, and the rise in the pay by itself may cause workers to be more productive.

Yet, there was barely enough time for Greene to talk much less delve into the data. Host Casone was either unaware of this research or else deliberately refrained from bringing it to the “we report, you decide” network’s viewers’ attention.

Showing 8 reactions

Donât you just love these evil, greedy, selfish rat bastards? It reminds me of all those in Congress who oppose the Presidents health care plan, while we the taxpayers are paying for their health care for free for the rest of their lives. I wonder if they recognize their obvious hypocrisy or do they think most people are too stupid to know or care.

I think it would be reasonable (a) to require anyone griping about a minimum wage to disclose their own hourly compensation, and (b) to try to exist for a month on the now-current minimum, sans lobbyist lunches, congressional junkets and soirees sponsored by PACs. It would be eye-opening on so many levels.

@mj: I’d like for those idiots you mention to just try living ON minimum wage for a month. (Of course, I mean the FEDERAL minimum wage—not that of a state that offers higher than the Federal wage. There are only 4 states that have lower minimum wage laws but I’m not really sure how that actually works.) At $7.25 an hour and a 40-hour workweek, an employee is making a mere $290 a week gross pay with 15-20% of that going to the various withholding taxes which amounts to between $230 and $250 a week after taxes. (Such net pay may be great if your expenses are next-to-nothing, but if you’ve got to drive your own car to work and make a house payment or rent and if you want to eat and have decent clothes, that amount of money doesn’t leave you too much for anything else—like healthcare or a savings account.)

Now, Count — let’s not be too hard on Limpballs: hanging out with the Krafts is the closest he’ll ever get to owning an NFL franchise . . .

Jonathan Hoenig put forth the suggestion under discussion – that the minimum wage should be abolished. He called it a âgovernment force, so of course it destroys jobs. It violates the rights of both employers and employees to act in their own self interestâ¦"

I keep wondering why this piece of sh!t HoePig — who once advocated a US military strike on Iran for the SOLE purpose of increasing his investment portfolio — is even allowed to talk around other supposed adults . . .

I’d like for HoePig, Mitt Romney, Rush Limpballs, and all these other rightwing azzholes who want to eliminate the minimum wage and think the poor have it too good to have to LIVE on below minimum wages for a month . . .

What an embarrassing day for the Patriots. No not the New England Patriots, sure they lost but they didn’t embarrass themselves at all. I’m talking about Rush Limbaugh caught picking his nose on national TV.